


Reversal

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Series: In the North [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Past Abortion, Past Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 13:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2111631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lysa has a child of her own, it affects her relationship with Catelyn in both expected and unexpected ways.  Sequel to "In the North."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reversal

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own A Song of Ice and Fire or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

This one lives.

That is enough to fill Lysa with joy: that her babe lives. She has hoped and prayed for so long, but she was never able to fully shake the fear and doubt that increased each time. There was her first babe, gone from her womb against her will when her father gave her that tea, which she still cannot think on without wanting to be sick. There was her daughter, born in the second year of her marriage to Ben; she never even breathed, and Lysa never got to hold her. There was the time earlier this year when she thought that perhaps—but no sooner had she mentioned it to Ben than the blood came. It is likely enough that she was merely late, but she will never be certain, and it is still a painful perhaps.

And then she has been so frightened that this one would not live either. After the last time, she was afraid to hope too soon, and she told no one at all about the absence of her moon blood until it announced itself one day when she fainted on the way out of the great hall. “You should have said something earlier, my lady,” Maester Bannen told her, and she nodded meekly, afraid that everything would be ruined yet again, and this time through her own foolishness. The feelings of weakness and dizziness didn’t go away, either, and she spent most of her time over the following moons in bed, following the maester’s instructions to the letter, begging the gods to bring this babe into the world safely and worrying that they would never hear her. And the birth was so painful that there were moments when she was sure that one or the other of them would never survive it, and only Ben’s hands holding hers kept her going on. But what does all that worry matter now when this one lives?

“Let me, let me,” she begs, reaching out her arms as soon as the babe is fairly in the world, as soon as she hears the cry that means life. And when she finally holds her child, Lysa thinks that she might die of joy.

That the babe lives would be enough, but it seems that the gods have decided to bring her many blessings together, as if to make up for lost time. For her son is healthy and strong and beautiful and perfect; she can imagine no more perfect babe. He looks like his father—Ben’s blue-gray eyes look so sweet in his small face—and that pleases Lysa more than she could ever have believed on the day she faced Ben in the godswood of Winterfell. “Look at him,” she tells Ben, who sits beside her on the bed. “Look at him, Ben, look at him, he’s our son, and isn’t he perfect? Isn’t he perfect?”

“He is,” Ben says, his cheek resting against hers as he leans closer to look at their babe, their babe who is alive.

He says more than that later, when the three of them are alone. Maester Bannen has cleaned the babe and seen to Lysa, and her maids have brought her a fresh shift and sheets, but now they are all gone. She sits back on the bed, Ben’s arms around her and the babe in her own arms, just where she wishes him to be. They have been talking over names and have just settled on Rodrik. It is a good Stark name, and that too pleases Lysa more than she would once have dreamed. “Rodrik,” she says, smiling down at her son, who looks back at her with those sweet eyes. “Rodrik Stark. Hello, Rodrik, my sweet boy.” He blinks at that. “Isn’t he perfect?” she asks Ben again. “Do you want to hold him too?” Ben nods, and she passes Rodrik over to him, as carefully and gently as she knows how. She does not think that she could give up her son to anyone else at the moment, but when Ben takes him tenderly in his arms, she feels her heart swell even more. “Isn’t he perfect?” she asks. She knows that she has said it many times, but what else is there to say about their son, their son who is so beautiful and healthy and precious and alive?

“Completely perfect,” Ben says. He has been looking down at Rodrik, but he raises his head to look at her now, and even though he is smiling there is something serious in his face. “Lysa, he is just…I am so proud of you both.” She smiles back at that and nestles against him, tucking her head against his shoulder, and so she misses the look on his face when he says, “I love you, Lysa.”

Ever since she began to think that Ben—not just the children he might give her, but Ben himself—might make her happy, last year when they visited Winterfell, she has asked herself whether she loves him, whether it will ever feel like what she once felt for Petyr. It does not feel like that now, but then Ben is nothing like Petyr. What it feels like is an _of course_ ; her own happiness when he speaks of this for the first time tells her what she feels. She looks up at them both, her husband and their son, with a love that is all joy and no pain.

“I love you, Ben,” she says. Their kiss is not long; Rodrik squalls after a second or two, jostled by their movement towards each other, and she scoops him back into her arms. “Shh, my sweetling,” she murmurs to him. “It’s all right. Mother’s got you right here.” She presses him against her, so close that she can feel his heart beat—his heart is beating, and that is a marvel to Lysa. “Mother loves you more than the world.”

They are together, all three of them, all the evening. She feeds Rodrik, holding him and reveling in the knowledge that he needs no one but her. Ben watches them both as if he too is drinking his fill. And Lysa feels almost as easily contented as her son, needing no one but the two of them. For the first time she can remember, she has gotten more than she asked for: she has a husband whom she loves and who loves her and a precious son whom they both love, a son who lives and thrives and is absolutely perfect.

She writes to Cat later that week, telling her all about Rodrik; Ben laughs when he sees the letter that she hands him to enclose with his letter to his brother. “Do you know,” he asks her, “that you call him beautiful three times in this letter? And perfect…”—he scans the parchment—“...six times?”

“Well, it is all true,” Lysa says. “Isn’t it, my sweetling?” Rodrik, who is nursing, makes a gurgling noise. “Yes, it is true. You are my beautiful, perfect boy.” She looks back up at Ben. “Besides, Cat will understand. She has babes of her own.” Ben comes to take a seat beside her on the bed, and she adds, “What did you say of him in your letter? How do men write about babes?”

“I told Ned that he is a wonderful babe,” Ben says, “a healthy, strong boy, and that it makes me very glad to see you with him.” She kisses him for that, and they sit quietly together for a few minutes, Rodrik finishing his supper and growing sleepy in her arms. “Goodnight, my son,” Ben says, touching one of Rodrik’s small hands before she rises to lay their babe in his cradle.

When she has settled Rodrik and kissed him goodnight, she returns to her seat next to Ben, saying, “I hope they will come to visit soon. I so want Cat to see him.”

“I mentioned it to Ned in my letter too,” Ben says. “I think they will.”

 

They do come to visit later that year. Rodrik is three moons old by then, and Lysa holds him swaddled against her as she and Ben wait outside the keep. Then Cat and Eddard arrive, and the yard is suddenly filled with their greetings. While Ben and Eddard grasp hands and begin to talk, Lysa shifts Rodrik to one side and embraces Cat with her free arm. It has been more than a year since she has seen her sister, and there is so much to share. Cat has both of her own children with her; Robb is nearly four now, and he clings to her hand while she holds little Sansa, whom Lysa has not seen before, on the opposite hip. “Oh, she’s such a pretty babe, Cat,” Lysa says, smiling down at Sansa.

“I think so, anyway,” Cat says laughingly. “And is this Rodrik?”

Lysa nods, holding the bundle so that Cat may look. “Yes, this is my babe.” She wonders if those words will ever feel less wonderful.

“Oh, isn’t he a sweet babe?” Cat coos as she looks. “Look at that face.”

“He looks just like Ben, doesn’t he?” Lysa says.

Cat nods slowly. “He does,” she says. “I’m so happy for you both, Lysa.”

Robb is fidgeting beside Cat, and Lysa says, “You must all be tired from the journey. Let’s go inside where you can rest. We’ve got so much to talk about.” Cat smiles and accepts the suggestion, following Lysa as they all go inside the keep.

Things feel so different between them this time: her first time seeing Cat now that they are both mothers. No longer does she need to watch Cat tend to Robb while longing for a babe of her own, and most of their conversations now take place with the three children around them. It is summer now (although Lysa and Cat are in accord that it does not truly deserve the name, which seems to amuse both of their husbands), and they can take the children out of doors. They set out a blanket in the grounds of the keep one day and talk the afternoon away. Cat keeps an eye on Robb as he runs to and fro, seemingly never still. Sansa crawls about on the blanket and even stands for a moment or two when Cat holds her hands; Cat watches her lovingly, and Lysa is almost as observant, thinking about what the coming months will bring for Rodrik. She holds Rodrik himself in her lap, where she best likes to have him, where she can feed him when he is hungry and see his sweet smiles and let him grasp at the end of her braid. She and Cat talk about their children, about those things that they have both experienced (that deep and special love, trying to get a fretful babe to sleep, feeling exhausted and joyful all at once) and about those things that Lysa still waits for (words and steps, getting the older brother accustomed to the new babe). They talk about their husbands too, and Lysa tells Cat of the afternoon that Rodrik was born, when she learned that Ben loved her and that she loved him, Ben who is all hers. Cat is more reserved with her words, but Lysa can hear her feelings in her voice, and she can see them on her face when Ben and Eddard join them towards the evening. She leans back in Ben’s arms and watches the other two, seeing the way that Cat looks at Eddard and the way that he looks at her and their children. While they are brothers, he does not smile readily like her Ben does. But even Lysa, who does not know him very well, can tell that there is something special in that look.

Lysa does not think that she has felt this happy in Cat’s presence since they were girls, and it means much to her that they can now be so easy together. They are sitting together in Lysa’s chambers one evening; the hour grows late, and both Robb and Sansa are asleep on the bed. Rodrik was asleep as well until mere moments ago, but now he has woken hungry, and Lysa is nursing him. Cat watches them, and then she speaks suddenly. “He really does look so like Benjen.”

“Yes, he does,” Lysa agrees. “You’re going to grow up into a handsome man like your father, aren’t you, my sweetling?” Rodrik’s only response is a little sound of sleepiness and contentment, and Lysa pats his back and lays him down beside his cousins.

They look at the children together, and Cat’s next words are very quiet. “You’re so lucky.”

At first Lysa does not understand what Cat means. Of course she feels lucky to have a babe of her own at last, but somehow she does not think that is what Cat is talking of. But then she looks at the three children—her own dark-haired babe next to her sister’s two with their Tully looks—and at Cat’s face, which looks half wistful and half as though she wishes that she had not spoken, and it comes to her suddenly. There is the bastard in Winterfell, and although Lysa has never spent much time around him she remembers him well enough to know that he looks far more like Rodrik than either of his trueborn cousins do. And Cat is looking at Rodrik now almost as if the sight hurts her.

But this is foolish, Lysa thinks. Anyone could see how much Eddard cares for his and Cat’s babes. And after all, it is not as though there are not enough Stark looks in the world to go around, as though Rodrik has taken something that would otherwise belong to Robb and Sansa. And it is not as though Lysa did it on purpose, as though she wanted to show Cat up in some way. She would be pleased with Rodrik no matter what he looked like, and she does not mean for the way he looks to hurt Cat. Cat is her sister, after all, and she would never want to hurt her, certainly not now that…oh.

Oh, she knows exactly how Cat must feel. She moves beside her sister and puts a hand on hers gently. “But your children are so beautiful, Cat,” she says. She means it from the bottom of her heart, and yet it still sounds wrong. “I…I saw the way Eddard looked at them, just the other day. I could tell he loves them…and that he’s so proud of them…” She must sound to Cat like she is making all this up, like she pities Cat so much that she is just saying anything that might smooth it all over, and she does not want to sound like that. She knows that what she is saying is the truth, and she means to help. But in a moment like this—when you want something so badly, something that someone else has—she does not think that any words can make it better.

“I know he does,” Cat says after a moment or two. “I know it, Lysa, it’s just that I sometimes…” Her voice trails off. Lysa wants to tell her that she understands how she feels, but she doesn’t, fully. She knows how it feels to be envious in spite of yourself—knows it all too well—but she doesn’t know what it’s like to have another woman’s child in your home, making you wonder if your own children are good enough. She knows no more about that than Cat ever knew about losing a babe or about growing up forever the lesser of two sisters. And to say that she understands will perhaps make everything worse.

Cat is looking at her as if she expects her to say something, though, and “I’m sorry” finally makes its way out of her mouth. That is almost worse than saying that she understands, Lysa thinks; Cat will not like hearing that.

Cat shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry,” she says. “I really am very happy, Lysa. Almost all of the time.” Then she hugs Lysa quickly. “And I am glad you are so happy too. Don’t be sorry for that.”

Lysa feels almost guilty that Cat can be glad about her happiness, when she herself struggled so long not to begrudge Cat every joy. Perhaps there really are some things that Cat has that she will never have, and perhaps this generosity is one of them. But as they sit beside each other and Cat turns the topic of the conversation and they talk quietly about their children, Lysa finds herself thinking more about the things that they share. There are the good things—beautiful children of their own and husbands who make them happy—and the bad things—worries and envies—and there is their sisterhood, which encompasses both good and bad and forever changes in ways that Lysa does not expect.


End file.
